


You Don't Fight Fair

by petersfeather



Series: Found Family [12]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Billy got adoped, F/M, Humor, Jim Hopper is a dad, M/M, Pranks, canon is trash, light harringrove, suck it duffers, sure, there's nothing else to tag this as, tumblr post, uhhh...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23453452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petersfeather/pseuds/petersfeather
Summary: "What if Billy and El decided to team up against Hop and they have a prank war"~~~Hop wipes his face of the whipped cream, jaw tight but eyes with a hint of amusement.“Alright alright… cut it out, you two.”And El nods, twisting her mouth up a little because she doesn’t like to disobey but she’s irritated and when she heads back into her room, Billy follows her.“Wha-?”“What do you say we call a truce?” Billy asks quietly, closing the door.“Tr-uce?”
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper
Series: Found Family [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534922
Comments: 2
Kudos: 80





	You Don't Fight Fair

**Author's Note:**

> hi there!
> 
>  **PREFACE:** This series is full of a bunch of asks from my blog [@okaybutlikeimagine](https://okaybutlikeimagine.tumblr.com/) where lots of lovely and gorgeous people have decided they like my writing enough to ask me to write things! So these works are going to be pretty casual and pretty random! (I'm trying to take out the shorthand but I might miss some). I might also add some content/polish some stuff up on here. So just be aware of that! **These are not full blown fics** , these are ficlets at best, but really they're just responses to asks on Tumblr. I was asked to post these all in one place here on AO3 for following and bookmarking reasons, which is why I'm doing this! **If you're JUST here to read full blown fics and not little ficlets like this, then sorry but this might not be for you!**
> 
> i'm gonna say rn that i'm not the best at pranks, BUT this was fun!
> 
> ^ ^ prompt is in the summary up there ^ ^ 
> 
> (title from the song Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar)

Hopper doesn’t stand a _chance_.

El and Billy are such an Iconic Duo! Especially in terms of pranks because Billy is Devious as Hell and El is Just Devious Enough to go along with it and not only that, but she has the mind powers that are able to bring all of Billy’s terrible thoughts to fruition and tell me he doesn’t get such a kick out of that because he _so_ does.

And before they team up for prank mayhem, El will often get super fed up and irritated with Billy because he’ll do that dumb thing where he pretends she has something on her shirt so he can flick her chin up (to which she just uses her mind to flick _his_ chin up) or he’ll put a fake spider in her room (to which she’ll throw it at him with her mind and innocently say she was just “returning” it) or he’ll put whipped cream on her hand while she’s sleeping and make her scratch her face, to which she’ll wipe the whipped cream off of her and send it flying towards Billy but….

It gets Hop instead.

Hop wipes his face, jaw tight but eyes with a hint of amusement.

“Alright alright… cut it out, you two.”

And El nods, twisting her mouth up a little because she doesn’t like to disobey but she’s irritated and when she heads back into her room, Billy follows her.

“Wha-?”

“What do you say we call a truce?” Billy asks quietly, closing the door.

“Tr-uce?”

Billy bends a bit to explain the meaning and then his reasoning. And El is a little hesitant because a “prank war” sounds dangerous and she doesn’t wanna upset Hop but Billy is _adamant_ about how it’s “all in good fun” as he ruffles El’s hair. They brainstorm a bit and Billy decides to head to the little pop-up Halloween store to gather some supplies.

And in a couple of days, there’s a bat flying around the cabin and a very shaken, very spooked, very _loud_ Hopper running around trying to shoo it out with a broom.

“It’s over here!” Billy yells from where he’s sat at the their little dining table, trying for all the world to not smirk or laugh as Hopper stumbles over the couch to get to it. When he eventually smacks it out of the air, it falls to the ground lifelessly and Hop takes tentative steps towards it, leaning over it and about to touch it with the broom when-

_-whoosh!-_

It flies up into his face and Hop _shrieks_ , smacking at it before Billy and El are busting out laughing, El from the doorway to her bedroom and Billy at the little table next to Hop and Hop realizes… it’s _fake_.

He gives harsh looks to both of his kids, throwing the fake bat down.

“Oh ha ha.”

But the kids are basically gasping for air at this point with how hard they’re laughing, El even flopped on the couch and tapping her feet on it as she laughs and Hop drops the fake bat onto her.

“Eek!” she shrieks as she uses her mind powers to fling it away from her and straight into Billy’s face, who gives a very similar shirek.

About a week later, Hopper walks into a completely dark cabin, and gets a little nervous for a second because El really doesn’t like the dark and his kids should be home on the couch watching TV and ruining their dinner? So why so quiet?

“Hello-?”

It’s just then that a flashlight turns on, illuminating a large, floating figure that looks to be wearing a cloak of some sort. It spooks him, making him jump and putting him immediately on edge. Suddenly it’s laughing a deep, rumbling chuckle and then it’s flying towards him, rushing and Hop has his hands up and is punching strongly into-

_Pillows…?_

The blanket that once seemed like a cloak falls over Hop’s face and he’s still punching when he hears the laughs. He’s struggling with the blanket over his head, pulling it off and flicking the lights on to reveal tiny feet kicking in the air from behind the couch and a curly head of blond along with crinkled blue eyes peeking over the top of the pillows.

_Stupid kids._

“What was that?” Hop demands, hands on his hips and anger in his voice. El pops up then, nothing but amusement in her face.

“Prank!” She shouts excitedly. Billy is still laughing when Hop turns irritated eyes onto him. Hop’s too tired for this. They're denied dessert when El asks. Billy doesn't pout about it like she does, but he does poke Hop's side with his elbow, asking if he "really can't take a joke?" The look Hop gives him is probably best described as unimpressed.

The next time, they get Steve involved, and Steve is not happy about it.

“Look, guys, you’re both very cute and very intimidating but this is _Hopper_ we’re talking about here! We can’t… he’s gonna kill us!”

“No he won’t.” El is adamant as Billy pulls out the bucket full of water from the quarry that they’ve been hiding all day.

“Okay, he won’t kill you guys because he loves you guys. He doesn’t have any attachment to me! He’s gonna murder me on the spot!”

“Stop being so dramatic.” Billy says, straightening up and walking towards the window to see if Hop is coming.

“Hey!” Steve whines. “I’m not dramatic!”

“You are, and it’s adorably irritating.” Billy says as he kisses Steve soundly. “Now go out there and distract him.”

And Steve does. He stumbles over words and keeps Hop from coming in until Billy gives the signal that El has the bucket in place, which is just to open the door and let Steve in slowly so that Hop stays just past the doorway and Steve’s face is stressed and Hop isn’t an idiot, he _knows_ something is up.

“If this is another prank…” he looks up and-

The bucket tips over and water pours down over his head.

Billy and El are laughing hard as Hop wipes his face and Steve is _terrified_. Hop starts taking heavy steps in the direction of the trio.

“I’m sorry Hop!” Steve is fumbling. “Uh, Chief! Sir! I’m so sorry, I was just used as bait, I promise!!”

“Come here.” Hop grumbles threateningly.

Steve is shaking like a leaf.

Hop extends his arms out. “And give me a hug.” He says it menacingly.

El’s eyes go wide and she giggles as she tries to run to her room. Billy holds his hands up in protest to the incoming Hopper.

“No no no, this is my favorite shirt.”

But none of them are safe, even as Hop chases Billy around the couch. He scoops all three of them into a very big, very damp bear hug, faces smushed and whines loud as they complain. Steve is…. Confused. But glad he’s not dying at the hands of the Police Chief so he guesses this is…. Fine….

And it’s ON at this point. Hop starts by only buying sugar free cookies and sweets but then realizes that affects him too so it’s a bit of a failure. He takes Billy’s car to get “serviced” but really he just gave it to a buddy of his down at the auto shop to hold it for a bit so that Billy has to be driven to school by Hop for a whole week. He buys only whole wheat Eggos. El hates them and pouts every time she picks up the box.

They table the Prank War so El can get her Eggos back.

But once Hop gets together with Joyce, Billy starts the prank war again with a renewed vigor. This time they have Jonathan and Will on their side, against Hop and Joyce. They all feel a little bad about doing anything mean to Joyce, but it’s still fun to watch her jump and shriek when Will’s stuffed puppy starts running around her feet. Or when they switch out all of the groceries to frozen pizzas and cups of pudding. Or when Will and El sweetly tell her that they ran her a bath and then lead her to their bath tub full of the Jell-O they all 4 spent all day making. This one was particularly hard to Billy, because he has quite the affinity for Jell-O and ate so much of it that Jonathan and Will sat Billy down on the couch to sit this one out.

Joyce and Hopper are ON IT though. They’re the fuckin dream team and were probably totally partners in crime in high school whenever they’d hang out together. They replace Billy’s hairspray with water. They hide all of Jonathan’s records and switch them out for old stuff from the 40's and 50’s. They let the Party come over and then embarrass the living daylights out of Will by sitting and pretending to try to understand DnD, purposefully getting everything slightly wrong and making Will want to pull his hair out. They let El go out on a date with Mike, but they insist on being there and they actually start dancing with each other in the middle of the ice cream parlor. El is _mortified_.

But the real straw that breaks the camel’s back is when Joyce helps Hop turn all of the kids’ clothes pink.

On _picture day_.

Like….. Billy is standing in the middle of their living room in a pink button down because his clothes are tinted pink now and he’s _not happy_.

“I can pull off anything, sure, but are you serious?”

“It was an accident.” Joyce says as she smirks over her cup of coffee.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Jonathan sighs, walking out in a pink short sleeved button down and a pout.

Will hops out, smiling a bit because he really doesn’t care that much that his t shirt is pink. He’s a little worried about bullies but Mike helps him with those and he’ll be fine. El waves bye to them happily and totally not perturbed in her big pink-ish sweater with pink-ish shorts underneath.

Jonathan is pouting as he heads out to his car. “The prank stuff is over, Billy.”

“No, we can’t let them win.”

“We’re wearing _pink_ for _picture day_ , Billy. It’s _over_.”

Billy huffs in angered defeat.

**Author's Note:**

> if we could all take a second to think about Billy pouting in a pink shirt in his school picture, I would be very happy, thank you. ^U^ ♥
> 
> this specific post can be found on my tumblr [right here](https://okaybutlikeimagine.tumblr.com/post/187398954713/what-if-billy-and-el-decided-to-team-up-against)
> 
> i'm on tumblr[@okaybutlikeimagine](https://okaybutlikeimagine.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> my main blog is [@pointeful](https://pointeful.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thanks so much for reading, please stay safe and sane in these times, and i adore your soul ♥


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